I love this stuff. I grew up around these topics, with a father who is an astrophysicist. Specifically, his focus was Cosmology, i.e. the distant universe. I was fortunate enough as a kid to be able to join him in visiting the VLA in New Mexico and the La Silla observatory in Chile, where he did a lot of his research. Amazing technology, amazing science.
For anyone who is interested, he's written a great book for laypeople such as myself about the big questions in science (ranging from the big bang to genetics):
http://www.amazon.com/Cosmic-H...ords=cosmic+heritage